Thursday, December 31, 2009

my brother Steve is coming to visit and in one day my brother Derek is leaving to go back to school. They are awesome brothers and incredible uncles.I am happy and sad. Alone these baby brothers are funny but together they are hilarious....

love how Steve dresses.... They both play wonderfully with my boys and they always (well, almost always) make me laugh and happy, Remember the reenactment of Lach's birth at his first birthday party?

is to simplify.One area I either excel tremendously or fail miserably is meal planning. If I have a plan, then my grocery shopping is better for our pocketbook and we have happy tummies in the household. When I don't have a plan, our tummies, pocketbook and cupboards are miserable. You should see our cupboards now. They are pitiful....

I've completed a month of menus with recipes printed and in plastic sleeves in a binder, easily assessable for grocery list making and meal preparation.Simplify you ask? That is where I'm hoping some of you will come in. If a few of us do this and share, we won't have to "think" what's for dinner this week or next week and our grocery shopping will be easier because of it, etc...You know me well if you know our household eats a lot of chicken. Due to allergic reactions and not liking other meat by some members of the household (me on both accounts), all of my recipes are chicken or vegetarian based. Most of the recipes could easily have meat preferences switched, which is what I would do to your menu too.If you want to share a month's worth of dinner recipes let me know. I think if a few of us work together, this will be one easy "simplify" task.What are some other ways you've been able to successfully simplify?.....

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Tuesday, December 29, 2009

were the discussion for Family Home Evening last night.We came up with:1. Work together on home improvements (aka - no complaining)2. Everyone teach the family something (Laird is looking forward to teaching us how to juggle. I am too!)3. Family activities (we can never get enough of these!)4. Talk with softer, kinder voices and show more love and patience (that one came from me if you couldn't guess)5. Be healthierThen we worked on our personal goals and fried up some twinkies (that's why we needed #5)....

Monday, December 28, 2009

Sunday, December 27, 2009

a nine hour layover at the airport, so I picked her up and showed her a few of my favorite Portland places....We ate lunch at Old Town Pizza and I told her about their haunted past - we even ate in the elevator shaft....

We went to Voodoo Donut and stood in this crazy but SO worth it line....

Saturday, December 26, 2009

from my brother Derek was a GE Deep Fryer and my men are all but grunting.Today they fried delicious homemade french fries and then did a batch of pickles....

Deep Fried Pickles

Egg Wash:

1 cups milk

Pinch lemon pepper

Pinch dill weed

3 TBSP pickle juice

Whisk all ingredients together.

Breading:1 1/4 cups cornmeal

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1/8 cup lemon pepper

1/8 cup dill weed

1 teaspoons paprika

1/2 teaspoon garlic salt

Pinch cayenne pepper

Combine all ingredients.

Dip pickle chips into egg wash and then coat with breading. Arrange dipped pickles on a sheet pan lined with waxed paper. Chill for 30 minutes.In a deep fryer, heat oil to 375 degrees. Add chilled pickle chips in batches to the hot oil and fry for about 3 1/2 minutes or until golden.

Remove to a paper towel-lined plate to drain.

They are delicious!

Now they are talking about deep frying cheese, hot dogs, snickers, twinkies.....

coming down and for me, as much as I have enjoyed having everything out, it's such a breath of fresh air to have things back to "normal".... One of the things I do miss are all the Christmas cards displayed.We put ours on the back of our front door (yes, I know I'm still missing molding and base boards, but they are coming - yay!!)How do you display your Christmas cards?

I am not a fan of curtains in a laundry room, so we don't have them.Sometimes late at night doing laundry, I'm not the most modest.This is what I see when I look out the window - who knows what our neighbor has seen.....Now that we don't have midnight Christmas projects, we were able to tackle this window project that has been at the top of our list for quite sometime...We purchased Gila Privacy Frosted Window Film (19.99) and used the Gila Window Film Application Kit (8.99) to put it on. Super fast, super easy and save me hours of etching the window. We are thrilled with the results and the price and I'm sure our neighbor will be glad too!I'd show you more but we still have purple molding and we have major plans for this room. It will be quite sometime before you see it....

is Danish and the only Danish tradition I know is Ebelskivers. Luckily, I got my own pan and my sister-in-law taught me how to make them a few years ago. I had eaten them but never made them myself. It's a hit with our family and the boys LOVE it when we make these. We started out our Christmas with this delicious traditional Danish breakfast....